I Think, Therefore I Am

Frail and already damaged, Nolan’s body remained limp when, for the seventeenth time in his life, he awoke to his mother hovering above him, a large present in hand. His body had been aching and traumatized for some time now, with part of his abdomen red and engorged; it felt as if something was probing him from the inside, an internal vacuum trying to suck him up.

When his father left all those years ago, the man’s body looked ghostly and leather-like, as if the putrified skin of a dead animal had replaced his own and tried to shield his interior. At the time, Nolan had been too young to register what a terrible condition he appeared to be in, and though his memory had become foggier by now, Nolan couldn’t help but feel as though he was growing to resemble the figure more and more, as he aged into what would be his adult body.

It was his seventeenth birthday, and at this stage of life, Nolan had already expected what his “gift” would be. Scales were the one thing he knew was sure to always be in his possession; every other factor of his domestic life was unstable. From the time he was a child, Nolan’s mother had ripped and dragged them from house to house, after short periods of inhabitation, once she deemed the house too “uncleanly.” His Mother was a woman of order and impeccable

taste. If something wasn’t to her liking, it was to be disposed of immediately, forgotten, and left to rot.

Nolan wondered why his Mother continued wrapping it up at all, both of them already knowing of its contents, yet he put on a big show of untying the bow and removing the scale from its brightly colored box, his Mother’s piercing eyes watching expectantly. He placed the dully gray colored scale on the floor and thanked his Mother, to which she replied, “Happy birthday, my dear” in a voice only slightly higher than a whisper, the crinkles near her eyes turning upwards as she smiled, showing off the little teeth she had. “Go ahead, get on it. I’ll turn around.”

Nolan shifted his gaze from her to the floor, knowing he had no other option but to comply. This was their tradition: for each year Nolan had managed to make it to, he was forced to weigh himself and make sure that he was living in accordance with whatever standard she had envisioned.

In an attempt to fill the tense silence that always ensured whenever Nolan was weighing himself, his mother turned on the radio, one of the few items that had belonged to his father that he was allowed to keep, solely out of convenience. “And now a sermon from Reverend Jean…”

“I want to dedicate today’s sermon to our female listeners, staying home and holding things down for the male heads of the household. While your life might be in shambles now, at least you can say you’ve done your duty and birthed-” before the program could continue,

Nolan’s mother aggressively flipped the off switch and asked him, So?”

“One hundred and twenty-five pounds,” he announced, the distance and resentment somewhat audible in his voice.

“Very good,” his mother informed him, still not looking at him. “You may get dressed.”

“Thank you, Mother.”

*

Later that night, after partaking in all of his usual pre-planned birthday activities, such as nibbling on a cupcake with no icing and blowing out a candle outdoors where it was less likely for the smoke to enter his lungs directly, Nolan’s Mother drew him a bath, which he was only allowed to enter on special occasions like these, his Mother believing it to be the equivalent of basking in your own accumulated filth, finally granting Nolan the privilege of relaxation.

The bathroom, of course, remained spotless. His mother hadn’t been employed for some time, as she found that deep-cleaning the house each day was a much more productive and rewarding way of spending her time. Of course, he was forced to help her, his back bent and knees folded as he scrubbed each tile hand by hand. It did pay off in some way–the floor was stark white, the windows had no sign of dirt on them, allowing the blue hue from outside to escape into the house, and the large mirror hanging above the sink glistened almost cartoonishly.

As Nolan submerged himself under the water, he began to contemplate what forces, divine or not, would allow him to experience such suffering in his life. He thought that at this age, perhaps he would have grown accustomed to the ridiculous and oppressive conditions his Mother had forced him to live under, that her ways would become his new normal, that he would make peace with her and himself, that there was a possibility of acceptance and forgiveness. Though truthfully, he wondered, what would acceptance look like, if not just mindless submission? What more could he possibly do to conjure up acceptance? And if he was ever truly willing to embrace his Mother, would she even be deserving of it?

Nolan couldn’t bring himself to answer that question, but deep down, he knew that his father would. In fact, he already did, and the answer was no. He had to leave eventually, for one reason or another. The truth, or the only sensible theory Nolan could conceive, was that his Mother had to have already been unwell for some time, and yet his father chose to marry her anyway, for his own stupidly selfish reasons.

As Nolan scrubbed himself with a bar of soap and a tattered washcloth, he tried to recall memories of his father. They had always been extremely limited, due to the age Nolan was when he left, his mother’s refusal to acknowledge his existence in any way, shape, or form, as well as Nolan’s own forgetful nature, which frustrated and disappointed him to an immeasurable degree.

The very few memories he could recall were always insignificant little tidbits, like the few sparse blonde hairs that grew in his curly head of brown weed, the fact that the last digit of his phone number was two, and the tiny scar on his left ring finger. Despite their lack of importance, Nolan found himself obsessively going over these facts, trying to get any sense of his presence, whilst being completely devoid of him in reality.

Nolan observed the cloudiness of his bathwater, its pale color similar to that of his own skin. He lifted his body and ran his fingers over himself, tracing from his nape down to his protruding hip bones. After soaking for so long, his skin looked red and raw, his ribcage somehow more visible than it already had been. It was getting harder and harder for him to mask his utter disgust with the condition he allowed himself to be in.

In the stash of magazines Nolan kept hidden under his mattress, there were countless boys who couldn’t be much older than him, with perfectly healthy, thriving bodies. He didn’t risk sneaking into town and buying these magazines for his own arousal (though there have been times when he’s tried to use them for their intended purposes and miserably failed because he couldn’t shake the guilty feeling that someone was watching over him.), but simply to learn what other bodies could look like, full and exposed, and so different from his starved and contained self.

Planning to flip through his magazines tonight, Nolan hurriedly dried himself with a towel, roughly going over the injury near his abdomen and unintentionally causing it to bleed. Bandages were never readily available in his house; the possibility of an injury, which was just another imperfection, not once crossed his mother’s mind. He held the towel against his flesh, watching the redness of his blood spread and stain. It seemed like the more pressure he applied, the deeper the aching felt, and the more blood rushed out of him.

A sudden flickering of the lights startled him, and amongst all the unexpected chaos, briefly made him think of his mother, who was sure to begin panicking. They flashed on, off, and on again, almost rhythmically, as if they were trying to communicate with one another. He couldn’t pay much attention to the phenomenon, solely focused on the aching in his side. He removed the towel to discover that his wound had turned black around the edges, as if someone had scorched him with a boiling liquid, but there was a dark shade of blue in the middle.

Bewildered, like a deer in headlights, the only person he knew he could help was his mother. His feet hit the ground, pounding against the hardwood floors. He managed to stumble up the stairs and into her room, where he found her kneeling, head bowed, and hands clasped together.

The image in front of him could’ve been deemed haunting had any other person seen it, but Nolan showed no reaction, only focused on his own pain. Her long gray hair covered her head entirely, her frail and bony arms shaking as if her body was about to give out completely, as if she was ready to surrender completely. Under her breath, she muttered over and over again a series of numbers, “eight, three, two, six, three, zero, one, nine, nine, two.” The lamp in front of her, the one that she appeared to be praying to, flipped on and off with each alternating number, as if the two beings were in conversation with one another. Even with the light flashing wildly in front of him, Nolan’s focus remained on how his body continued to ache and ache, as if something was probing him from the inside and trying to swallow him whole.

The wound continued to spread, the blueness eventually taking over the blackened edges. In the time he had spent desperately calling out to his mother and wildly screaming her name, it had travelled from his abdomen to his collarbones and thighs. After what must’ve been the hundredth time he cried out for her, she finally responded. Suddenly, she rose, an unexpected grime covering her kneecaps.

Her steps toward him were staggered, and when she finally reached Nolan, she jerked him by the shoulder and threw him against the floor with unprecedented strength. In one swift motion, she threw her head back, hair sticking up straight, as she plunged a bite-covered arm into his gaping wound. The pain was indescribable, both from the swift spread of the wound and his Mother’s interference.

Her arm plunged deeper and deeper and travelled upwards from his stomach to his mouth. She spared him, at least a little, and pulled her hand out quickly, and once she did, she collapsed.

By now, he had been taken over.

His body was dripping blue liquid, and all life had been removed.

Nolan saunters over to the nearest mirror he can find. There is one speck of dust on it. He blows it away.

He is blue and disfigured beyond repair. His appearance could be likened to a skeleton with the thinnest layer of skin blanketing it. Each bone and joint is visible. If you were to shine a light on him, you’d be sure to see arteries and intestines.

His face maintains its human qualities, only it is unrecognizable and no longer his own. The shape of his head, the placement of his eyes, nose, and lips, and the tufts of curls on his head all resembled the long-forgotten features of his father.

In a voice only slightly higher than a whisper, he says to himself, “Enjoy it.”